Rydon, my brother though he broke that trust long ago, lies sleeping across the room. His face is peaceful, blank, lacking the pride that broke him and the pain that once drove him. He looks like a stranger, some traveler come to stay for the night and nothing more. He does not look like the man who tore a nation asunder, the strange innocence on his sleeping face does not suggest a man who allied with a monster to take back a broken crown.
And when he wakes… it may be screaming, or it may be crying, or else that blank look that will be content staring at the stonework of the wall for hours on end. There is no way to know, not since the Telepath broke his mind, a few years since.
Kamirth says that I should put him out of his misery, but what she hardly understands is that I have had enough of killing. And… I could not even turn him out, as Mouse suggests. I know him too well. I understand him too deeply. And I know, but for a twist of fate, it could have been me that traveled down to the depths he did. I cannot say whether I would have lasted as long.
I am an old woman now, too long driven by vengeance and hate, given this one last chance to redeem myself for the suffering I have caused. As my last act, perhaps I can ease the suffering of the one I used to love more than life itself.
But the old share in common this – the desire to be remembered after our bodies return to the earth. I have been called many things during my life, but kind has never been one of them. Perhaps I deserved it. Triune knows how easy it was for me towards the end. Triune knows how… Ah, nevermind. I shall come to that in its proper time.
Now, on the eve of this battle that I feel will finally claim my life, I wish to set the record straight. Here I shall leave the last will and testament of Pyra Andraste, last daughter of that royal house, heir of the last true Sylvan king, the Lady of the Scarlet Glove. If you who read this have any kindness within you, I ask that you remember me not as a nightmare, but as a person driven by fate, betrayed, and left to fall. I will not try to justify what I have become, but… the Triune works in mysterious ways. Perhaps through the setting down of the facts the tapestry of my life will emerge.
cat and ink 